


Bird the Third - Kestrel - choices she can never understand

by BardicRaven



Series: Three Birds of Prey for your Yuletide Delight [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Birds of Prey (Comic), Green Arrow (Comics)
Genre: Confusion, Crueltide, Divorce, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/M, Frustration, Gen, Lack of Communication, Loss of Trust, Marriage, Misses Clause Challenge, Misunderstandings, Philosophical Differences, Questions, Regret, Relationship(s), Relationships Are Messy, Survivor Guilt, Worldview Differences, lack of trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:32:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Dinah reflects on the choices she can never understand. And how they affect her life now. </p>
<p>His choice to die rather than give up the bow. His choice to kill Prometheus, rather than turn him over to the law. His choice to turn away from his sons, especially when they needed him.</p>
<p>His choice to turn away from her. His choice to keep it all inside, rather than trust her, talk to her.</p>
<p>His choice to trust her with his life, but not his heart.</p>
<p>She doesn't understand them. But she has to live with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird the Third - Kestrel - choices she can never understand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mercutia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutia/gifts).



> ##### And here you go, the last of the trilogy for your Yuletide Delight. (Or so I hope! The delight, that is. :D)
> 
> ##### Happy Yuletidings!
> 
> ##### Yule-Goat-to-be-named-later

It took Dinah Lance a long time to come to terms with her lover's death. Endless nights of wondering. Grieving. Denial. Anger. Acceptance. All the stages over and over. 

And through it all the eternal and unanswered question of 'why'?

Why would he choose death over losing the bow?

Why wouldn't he do what he had to in order to stay with her?

That's the one that hurts the most, of course, for all it's an endlessly-repeated litany too. All the lovers. All the betrayals. All the silences. All the guilt.

Why? Why wasn't she enough?

A question she puts ruthlessly out of her head as she dons the black for another night's work.

O>>>\----------->

The question was why she'd left Oliver in the first place. She didn't like asking it and resented the way he kept encouraging her to think it, even tho' he never knew that he did so. To his credit, never intended to do so. Not that it mattered, when his actions kept provoking the same response, time after weary time. 

There's only so much banging your head against a wall that you can do before you really hurt yourself.

And she'd no desire to do that, so she'd left.

Left her life, the shattered remnants of her shop and her relationship, and fled East.

She'd come to Gotham, found Barbara Gordon, she who'd been Batgirl then, found a team, and with them, found a family that didn't make her constantly question herself and her entire reasons for being.

She breathed a sigh of relief and resolved never to look back. 

A resolution that she turned out to be no better than other mortals at keeping.

O>>>\----------->

She never allowed the question to stay, but sometimes, just sometimes, she'd find Oliver creeping into her mind, her heart, parts lower down and much more inclined to fond reminiscence without the bother of thought, and then she'd find herself growing wet and would take herself almost violently, anything to get the thoughts out of her head once more. She'd scream her pleasure silently into the night and then, only then, could she banish the thoughts once more to the  
netherworld to which they belonged.

Then, she could return to herself, be herself, without all those troubling questions, like 'why'.

And not just the 'why's of him, tho' it usually started there.

But also 'why's about the world. Why did problems seem to only be solved with violence? Why was the world a place that only listened to force? What was it about human beings that so often had them acting with so little humanity?

And then she'd find her body growing wet again, but this time with her tears, as she'd let them fall, quietly, alone, as she felt she ever was.

She had the team, of course. Thank Goodness for that. She wasn't sure how she would have coped otherwise, in that frightening time after Oliver's death, when, despite her best intentions, the why’s kept returning louder and more insistent then ever.

'Why's she had no answer to, not that she ever had, but now, she'd lost the possibility of ever getting any answers and that nearly drove her mad.

With frustration. With regret.

She poured it into her work. As she always did. And if she took out some of her anger and her grief on the criminals she faced, she let it slide, trying desperately to ignore that that had been a thing of Oliver's too. 

O>>>\----------->

But then, she supposed she couldn't be too surprised. While Oliver had killed for her before, done violence on her behalf, he'd also had a track record of leaving the ones who loved him long before she came along.

Starting with Roy. She'd been the cause of that. No, she'd been the reason for that, she reminded herself sharply. Oliver was the one who chose. Chose to put her above the young man he'd claimed as his son. Chose to let his temper get the better of whatever parental spirit he possessed. 

Thank Goodness she and Hal had been there to pick up the pieces. Help the boy help himself.

Picking up the pieces. A common thing around Oliver Queen.

Continuing with Connor. A chance-meeting in an ashram, a place of pennance once before. A connecting, a knowing, and then, again, a storming out, this time, for good.

Before they'd had a chance to reconcile, any of them, Oliver had chosen the bow over them all, and died in the skies over Metropolis.

Connor hadn't been enough either. But that was cold comfort in the depths of the night. 

O>>>\----------->

Slowly, slowly, she began to heal. Began to come back to herself, to a world where the 'why's became softer, less insistent. Where the self-doubt was lost amidst the successes of her team, herself. 

There was a time of peace, when she didn't think about Oliver and what he'd been to her, what they'd been to each other. When the only times she remembered was in dream, a dream with a release, then waking up to tears on her pillow, tho' why she couldn't always recall. 

She poured herself into her work and her life, her team and her mission, and she stubbornly refused to think about anything beyond the walls of Gotham.

And then the news came that he was back.

How wasn't quite said. There were rumors about Hal and the devil, but Dinah never put much stock in anything beyond the present moment, beyond what she could see and hear and hit.

She refused to let herself worry about it. Except...the thoughts came back in a rush. All the 'why's she'd banished.

She thought she'd just stay away. Stay with the Birds and the Bats in Gotham, where she was happy and where the 'why's were so much quieter. 

Where she felt herself.

Where she belonged.

And yet... she found herself curious. Was it really him? How could it be? Superman had said he'd stayed with him until the end. And he never lied.

So she found herself in a jet with Roy, flying back to a place she'd never expected to see again, to a man that she'd definitely never expected to see again. 

And back to emotions she'd never expected to feel again.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. About the return of love and lust she'd both thought locked away for good.

O>>>\-----------> O>>>\-----------> O>>>\----------->

She knew how she felt, later, when they fell back into their old routine. 

The silences. The guilt. The unwillingness to trust each other with the important things. The fear of showing vulnerability.

The inevitable consequences. 

Betrayal. Anger. And no one side with the high ground, whatever they might tell themselves in the privacy of their own minds. 

And while there was conflict between them, there was stress between the members of the team as well.

Dinah didn't know if either of the important relationships in her life would survive.

And she didn't know who to blame - Oliver or herself.

O>>>\-----------> O>>>\-----------> O>>>\-----------> O>>>\----------->

She did blame the questions - why don't you trust me? why don't/won't you talk to me? what the hell do you think you are doing? why can't you be true to me? why can't you be honest with me?

Fear begets fear and a spiral that takes someone willing to say 'Enough!' to get out of.

He couldn't and she wouldn't and so they seemed doomed to play out the tired scenario until the days they both died.

And every time the little voice inside her head whispered that maybe she should be the one to break the impasse, to take the higher ground, she angrily hushed it, snarling that she was done, dammit!, DONE, and she was not going to be the one to keep trying when she was the only one to keep trying.

O>>>\----------->

Those were the times she ran back to Gotham, to the safety of her team and the questions she knew how to answer - how to catch this criminal, how to put this person away without undue risk to self and others. 

But then, inevitably, as much as she told herself she was acting just like the women she rescued, she found herself going back, the single question that she could not answer being 'why'. 

O>>>\-----------> O>>>\-----------> O>>>\-----------> O>>>\----------->

Why did she stay? Why did she keep coming back to him? 

If it had been anyone other than herself, she would have questioned their sanity, their self-esteem, that they kept coming back to a man that didn't give them what they needed, what they wanted out of a relationship.

Things like fidelity. Trust. Love. Not just the love of the capes, of the nighttime, but the love of the daylight too.

The love of being able to trust that your man would be there when you got home, or, if not, that he was out working, not screwing the latest pretty thing to cross his path.

The love of knowing that you both were doing your best to make a lifetime together, not just a nighttime together. 

The love of knowing that you had the same values, the same basic philosophy in life.

The same goals.

How much of that did she have with Oliver? Not enough. And yet, despite that, despite her best intentions and her mind constantly asking her what the fuck she thought she was doing, she kept going back to him.

O>>>\----------->

There was a moment, when she thought they had a chance.

When she said 'yes' to another question.

THE question. 

And she meant it and so did he, thank God, and for a while, it seemed like everything was going to be okay.

At last. 

And then, and then, the pattern started all over again, that inexorable slide down into the rift between them.

So, even tho' she knew he'd meant what he'd said to her, meant the promises he'd made, even so, it wasn't enough to overcome the fear.

It wasn't enough to make him trust her.

Let him trust her.

She wasn't enough to have him trust her. In the little things, yes, although it was strange to be calling the nights on the streets little thing.

Or maybe that was it. He could trust her for the big things, but not for the little things. 

His life, but not his feelings.

Either way. From his hands to his heart, he didn't trust her enough.

And then Prometheus came and destroyed what little was left between them.

And Oliver broke the promise he'd made. Not just to her, but to them all. He'd lied, cheated, and stolen from them all.

And dragged Mia down with him into the darkness.

Dinah wasn't sure which of those was the worst. 

She did know she couldn't do this any more. 

She returned his ring while he sat in prison. Cowardly, she knew, but she was afraid that if she didn't do it then, she never would. And she needed to be done.

With the lies.

With the evasions and half-truths and deadly silences.

With the knowing that she was never going to be enough for him, could never be enough for him.

That he was never going to change. Never going to let her in. Despite what she wanted. Despite what she needed.

If he needed to armor his heart more than he needed her, sobeit.

At least she'd know the answer to 'why'.

O>>>\----------->


End file.
